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And, as I understand it, the Wonder Woman analog from The Boys is a comment on that issue of representation, and the pressure that the existing limited representation places on those existing symbols/characters/stories. Wonder Woman is pretty much the only standalone heroine most people know, so she has to represent every kind of woman from all classes, creeds and races. That's fine and that's a useful point. Saying that lovely things happen in real life, and writing stories where bad people get punished instead of getting away with it is pointless, is cynical to the point of me pitying the person who feels that way.
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Feb 25, 2015 23:54
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Isn't there a Batman story which ends with him realising some problem is more to do with social issues before saying "This looks like a job for Bruce Wayne"?
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Feb 25, 2015 23:55
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Gaz-L posted:And, as I understand it, the Wonder Woman analog from The Boys is a comment on that issue of representation, and the pressure that the existing limited representation places on those existing symbols/characters/stories. Wonder Woman is pretty much the only standalone heroine most people know, so she has to represent every kind of woman from all classes, creeds and races. Are you sure it's saying that and not implying that issues like violence against gays can be written about in a way thats not just a super hero beating up some thugs?
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Feb 26, 2015 00:05
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A Gnarlacious Bro posted:How is that not actually of substance? Like i said it basically is saying "the real world isn't solved by punching" when the problem with that is that isn't what the story is about. Sure superheroes solve things through punching but they can also be seen as showing you that you aren't alone, and that there are people on your side. The punching and dealing with the problem in the comic are basically afterthoughts that aren't important to the overall message. I feel you have to be either willfully dense or looking for a reason to hate something to miss something so glaringly obvious.
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Feb 26, 2015 00:07
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Uhh ok
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Feb 26, 2015 00:11
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Personally I do wonder where people get the idea that comics are proposing solutions to complex problems. Like even Superman Vs. The KKK didn't actually involve Superman proposing solutions to racism or anything silly like that. Like that is dumb on multiple levels.
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Feb 26, 2015 00:14
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A Gnarlacious Bro posted:Are you sure it's saying that and not implying that issues like violence against gays can be written about in a way thats not just a super hero beating up some thugs? But that's, sorta, okay? I mean, I haven't read either of the stories talked about, but as someone who was bullied, beaten, and put in the hospital twice due to my sexual orientation, having a superhero on my side trying to help me would have been great. Having anyone, police, teachers, on your side can be helpful, and in a lot of places you wont get that in any real way. So I mean, maybe it'd be better for Green Lantern to go on to make political speeches and seek justice through change against homophobia, but really? That's not going to happen in a comic, as the focus of a comic, unless it turns out his opponent is secretly a neo-nazi supervillain he'll have to beat up. Because the real reason 'problem is solved by punching it' is so common in comic books is because that's what sells them. People who buy comics don't want to read 20 pages about batman opening an orphanage for displaced youths, they don't want to read a book in which Bruce Wayne has bought out Arkham and everyone who gets sent there not only stays there, but is treated and rehabilitated. And sometimes it's nice to have something just as simple as 'violent thug is beaten up due to his violent actions.' Sometimes watching everything in fiction advise taking the moral high ground and never fighting back gets tiresome. Edit: Honestly, this Ennis person seems like a huge hack, who is mad that he can't sell more than ten copies of the comics he wants to sell, but refuses to realize that the reason for that is because no one is interested in his perfect dream ideas. It clearly must be that the sheeple masses are too stupid to understand his comics, and he has to show them how dumb superhero comics are, so they realize they want his better, more intelligent ones!
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Feb 26, 2015 00:18
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KittyEmpress posted:Edit: Honestly, this Ennis person seems like a huge hack, who is mad that he can't sell more than ten copies of the comics he wants to sell, but refuses to realize that the reason for that is because no one is interested in his perfect dream ideas. It clearly must be that the sheeple masses are too stupid to understand his comics, and he has to show them how dumb superhero comics are, so they realize they want his better, more intelligent ones! Ah yes, Garth Ennis, the hack.
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Feb 26, 2015 01:19
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Dragonshirt posted:Ah yes, Garth Ennis, the hack. Literally the only thing I've ever read by him was Preacher, which had like, a few good issues from what I read, while the rest seemed to be Atheist wanking over how superior not having a God would be and how stupid theist religious people are, on the level of reddit/atheism fedora tipping. So yeah, he's a hack? KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Feb 26, 2015 |
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Feb 26, 2015 01:27
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I'm not a Garth Ennis apologist or anything but he is far from a hack.
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Feb 26, 2015 01:31
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Yeah, I've been giving him poo poo here too, but I wouldn't be that mad if he was a hack. Like, Scott Lobdell is a lovely writer, but the only reason to get mad about that is if he writes a series you'd been enjoying. Ennis is capable of really good stuff. He's also capable of petty stuff, and really juvenile dick and no-homo jokes.
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Feb 26, 2015 01:36
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I've not read Ennis' takedown of Winick's hate crime arc -- hell, I hadn't even known that he'd written one before today -- but is he aware that the character Terry Berg appears in over thirty issues of Winick's GL run and had been a recurring support character in the book for years before the actual gay bashing storyline came around? He was like Kyle Rayner's Jimmy Olsen. We'd already gotten to know him and his life long before that incident, so if Ennis' criticism was that Terry was just a stock sad gay trope to be paraded around for sadness points and then shuffled aside after his sad gay purpose was over (from what I can tell of his critique through the descriptions here despite, again, never having read this story)...well, that's not correct. That is objectively inaccurate. Also, even if the whole "superhero punching bad guys" solution isn't necessarily a very realistic or effective solution to homophobia and discrimination in the comics world, isn't there something to be said for comics being used as a medium for raising awareness and encouraging activism about these real problems in our real world? Telling a morality play about homophobia in such a dramatic fictional context, at the very very very least, tells people reading it "This is wrong. This is a really bad thing that shouldn't be tolerated." It seems absurd in this day and age that anyone with a functional brain needs to be told that beating gay kids half to death is a bad thing, but even ten years ago the climate was incredibly different and no one was saying anything about it.
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Feb 26, 2015 01:46
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KittyEmpress posted:Literally the only thing I've ever read by him was Preacher, which had like, a few good issues from what I read, while the rest seemed to be Atheist wanking over how superior not having a God would be and how stupid theist religious people are, on the level of reddit/atheism fedora tipping. Nope, you're talking garbage.
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Feb 26, 2015 01:51
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BrianWilly posted:I've not read Ennis' takedown of Winick's hate crime arc -- hell, I hadn't even known that he'd written one before today -- but is he aware that the character Terry Berg appears in over thirty issues of Winick's GL run and had been a recurring support character in the book for years before the actual gay bashing storyline came around? He was like Kyle Rayner's Jimmy Olsen. We'd already gotten to know him and his life long before that incident, so if Ennis' criticism was that Terry was just a stock sad gay trope to be paraded around for sadness points and then shuffled aside after his sad gay purpose was over (from what I can tell of his critique through the descriptions here despite, again, never having read this story)...well, that's not correct. That is objectively inaccurate. No, you see that is a symbolic act of solidarity and hope, and is thus utterly worthless because it doesn't literally beat up bigots.
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Feb 26, 2015 01:54
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Sentinel Red posted:Nope, you're talking garbage. So you think the guy who literally said 'I won' in terms of how anti-religious his comic was, when comparing it to DC's other comic lines that might employ religion, abrahamic or not, was not, in fact, being a fedora tipping athiest trying to show sheeple how stupid their God is? Or do you think that his constant tear down of superhero comics doesn't come from the fact that he can't seem to sell books that aren't power fantasy heroes, when he apparently (according to this thread) wants to write different things? Or are you just upset that I called him a hack?
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Feb 26, 2015 01:58
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I'm curious if you guys know what "hack" actually means or are just using it in place of "bad writer/writer I don't like." There's plenty you can reasonably poo poo on Ennis for, but he's anything but a hack.
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Feb 26, 2015 02:41
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Isn't there a Batman story which ends with him realising some problem is more to do with social issues before saying "This looks like a job for Bruce Wayne"? A huge part of No Man's Land was him realized he couldn't fix everything as Batman. Similar theme in Batman Inc.
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Feb 26, 2015 03:01
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Endless Mike posted:I'm curious if you guys know what "hack" actually means or are just using it in place of "bad writer/writer I don't like." There's plenty you can reasonably poo poo on Ennis for, but he's anything but a hack. Okay, I will admit the term hack is a little too far. I do think even the stuff people consider his best work isn't amazing, however, and that the idea of someone hating superheroes and making them out to be a stupid concept constantly seems kinda dumb to me.
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Feb 26, 2015 03:30
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To depict Garth Ennis as someone who's upset that his comics don't sell, so he deigns to write superheroes, rather misreads his situation. Ennis is an angry writer. He was born in Holywood, just outside of Belfast, North Ireland during the Troubles, and lived daily with two factions of Christians trying to kill one another, not caring much who got caught in between. Northern Ireland, and the sheer futility of trying to kill off the other side, or thinking that "This time, this bombing, this assassination, this guy being dead, this will solve everything", show up again and again and again throughout his writing. It should come as little surprise to learn that Ennis is an atheist, and distrusts authority figures that present themselves as knowing better than you. I think that's perhaps where some of the affection for Superman comes from, that he doesn't set himself up as the authority who must be obeyed, but instead inspires us to be the best versions of ourselves that we can be. Compare and contrast with, say, the Saint of Killers from Preacher, whose family was literally killed by God for "The Greater Good". Because if there's one thing he hates, more than anything else, is the "One Big Man Will Solve Everything" story, which is rather antithetical to a lot of superhero stories, and are often about super powered individuals heading in and solving the problem. Even in stories where said Big Man is the protagonist -- Punisher MAX and Fury: My War Gone By for example -- their actions are ultimately meaningless on the grand scale: they can't end Drugs, or War, or Crime, or Corporate Corruption. But what regular people can do, and he emphasizes this often as well, is work together with one another, be compassionate, be human, treat one another fairly, and try to understand one another. He might treat Spider-Man and Daredevil like garbage during his Marvel Knight's Punisher run, but he's lovely to Joan, Spacker Dave, and Mr. Bumpo, even though they are the kind of characters who are usually the dumb comic relief. The Battlefields: Dear Billy miniseries is one of the most tasteful and disturbing works about dealing with the aftermath of rape I've ever read. He's usually a very good writer, not someone who just shits out whatever's on his mind and calls it done. This doesn't mean he's always right, or that everything he touches is gold. Lots of people objected to Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds not being another weepy Holocaust film, or a patriotic movie about the Dignity and Honor of Soldiers, but tons of Jewish folks loved it for the sheer catharsis of watching Hitler get the poo poo beaten out of him, gently caress historical accuracy. I get this and fully understand it. That's why Ennis doesn't write all the comics. But I can also see where he's coming from. Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Feb 26, 2015 |
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Feb 26, 2015 03:54
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All of that is very true, and as I said, I wouldn't be so upset if I didn't recognise a lot of his talent. It's why people get mad at Dave Sim or Frank Miller. We know they're talented, so when they create stuff that is offensive or deplorable, it's upsetting. I do think you glossed over another element that tends to be offputting about Ennis, though. The scatalogical, crude and occasionally homophobic humour he's prone to using. Which can certainly be chalked up to some of the same elements of his upbringing, but doesn't excuse them.
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Feb 26, 2015 04:00
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Oh, absolutely, some of his books are just filthy and disgusting. Well written, but absolutely juvenile filth in between the good bits. The Boys is filled with it, Adventures in the Rifle Brigade has tons even for a farce, the Kevin stories he did for The Authority, the Meat Woman from Preacher...
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Feb 26, 2015 04:13
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Endless Mike posted:I'm curious if you guys know what "hack" actually means or are just using it in place of "bad writer/writer I don't like." There's plenty you can reasonably poo poo on Ennis for, but he's anything but a hack. They're not even using it like that. The word they're looking for is "dickhead". He's a fine writer.
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Feb 26, 2015 05:30
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Another great interview with King about Convergence
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Feb 26, 2015 15:46
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I finally got around to reading the Team 7 New 52 series they put out, only because I am a huge Wildstorm mark. What absolute loving garbage. It felt completely divorced from the DC world, none of the Wildstorm character felt particularly accurate, and worst of all, they made Majestic a stupid character who will be swept under the rug. I've really liked both Majestic series, and the part in Dan Abnett's Majestic where he and Superman talk in a diner about their conflicting approaches was really excellent. I get that the editors probably felt Majestic and Superman were too close in powers and origin, but they should have saved him for something more interesting than THIS. Maybe they could have built him into the setting as an ideological opponent of Superman with similar powers who works elsewhere in the world to similar effect but with completely different means, or just left him out completely. gently caress that poo poo. Don't write in characters just to write them in. Sorry, that discussion has probably already been had at some point of the thread but this thing pissed me off. I thought they should've left Wildstorm as was until someone came up with a good idea for it, rather than rolling it into DC in a perfunctory way, but whatever. Maybe just leaving it as a setting to run experimental sci-fi stuff in, or for anyone who wanted to do aliens or post-apocalyptic. Oh well, I still have the better WildCAT runs and Sleeper...
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Feb 27, 2015 13:59
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KittyEmpress posted:So you think the guy who literally said 'I won' in terms of how anti-religious his comic was, when comparing it to DC's other comic lines that might employ religion, abrahamic or not, was not, in fact, being a fedora tipping athiest trying to show sheeple how stupid their God is? You should probably go read his punisher runs, then maybe commit seppuku or something for being stupid and wrong. EDIT: And his Fury runs too, his portrayal of Nick Fury as a semi washed up cold warrior with no cold war desperate for some relevance again was absolutely amazing. Rhymenoserous fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Feb 27, 2015 |
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Feb 27, 2015 17:26
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Rhymenoserous posted:You should probably go read his punisher runs, then maybe commit seppuku or something for being stupid and wrong. Ah yes, "You're wrong and therefore you should kill yourself", truly the classiest kind of Internet debate.
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Mar 2, 2015 09:00
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I'll always praise his original MAX run and Preacher has good parts shining through the poo poo, but I think Ennis is close enough to a hack that just saying his name followed by a sarcastic "the hack" is not a good enough refutation. Dude needs to get better at sticking to his strengths and resist his bullshit tendencies, and the people that hire him need to put him on projects that play to his strengths while making sure to reign in his exessive bullshit.
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Mar 2, 2015 09:05
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Man stop being dumb about Ennis. Until Section 8 comes out this is the thread to discuss DC books not your dumb opinions on Ennis.
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Mar 2, 2015 09:40
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Not meaning to further arguments on Ennis, but spurred on by these last couple of pages, I started Hitman. That begins wrapped up in the Bloodlines event. I assume Hitman is the only good to come from it, and I shouldn't look into Bloodlines any further than that The Demon Annual he debuts in. e: Though, by this list http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2010/09/06/top-five-bloodlines-characters/ it seems like every other character was such a 1993 disaster (and according to the list those are the good ones!) that it might be fun. I kind of want to see the adventures of knife arm girl. Shameless posted:You assume correctly. Psyba Rats? That sure sounds amazing.  Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Mar 2, 2015 |
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Mar 2, 2015 09:57
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Teenage Fansub posted:Spurred on by these last couple of pages, I started Hitman. You assume correctly.
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Mar 2, 2015 09:58
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edit: Dropping it as per mod request.
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Mar 2, 2015 10:02
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Shameless posted:You assume correctly. The Giger-knockoff villains were pretty awesome. And for some reason I really liked Sparx and her Original Character Not-BeastHulk (do not steal) Uncle. I'm actually a bit saddened that's not a convergence one-shot (to the back of the neck to steal the sweet, sweet pineal fluid).
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Mar 2, 2015 21:31
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I...have a soft spot for Joe Public. His look was clearly terrible, but his power concept was kind of neat, and I loved how cheesy he was. Also, I think Geist had good comedy potential.
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Mar 2, 2015 21:54
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The only thing I remember about Bloodlines was the main aliens scaring the living poo poo out of me when I was a kid. That, and Anima was supposed to be the next big thing.
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Mar 3, 2015 00:12
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Which one fought Azbats?
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Mar 3, 2015 00:40
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Gunfire was the best worst character in the "concepts my eight-year-old nephew came up with" running. He can turn anything he holds into a gun! Or a bomb if it doesn't have a pointy end, which is still  ! He was the Go-Bots version of Gambit.
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Mar 3, 2015 20:28
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drat tomorrow is the end of Swamp Thing. 
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Mar 3, 2015 20:43
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McSpanky posted:Gunfire was the best worst character in the "concepts my eight-year-old nephew came up with" running. He can turn anything he holds into a gun! Or a bomb if it doesn't have a pointy end, which is still   Hitman #1,000,000
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Mar 3, 2015 20:49
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redbackground posted:His legacy lives on! What kind of idiot wears targets on his kneecaps? That's just asking for it.
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Mar 3, 2015 23:09
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Via Bleeding Cool:quote:Bleeding Cool has told you how the Convergence titles from DC Comics will contain new, original preview stories for the June mini-relaunch titles, that won’t be reprinted until the collections of the series they promote. And how those stories will also be made available free on all platforms. Well, on Friday at the DC Retailer Roadshow in New York. That does sound pretty neat.
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Mar 3, 2015 23:30
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